Boxes

Today I finished packing up my church office--twenty  boxes containing books and mementos of thirty-six years in church work. I am leaving my fifth church and my sixth church office.  It is I think the seventh time I have moved those books in the past ten years. 

When I left  my last church,  there were thirty-five boxes. That was after I had already given away at least forty percent of my library. I have come to realize that books are for reading, not for collecting dust.  That's easy to remember when you are toting thirty-five boxes in and out of your car. 

God was good to me, though. Oak Ridge called me to be their pastor.  I unpacked my boxes in the study of our new home--only the second home we owned in thirty-six years of marriage and eight moves.  Space was a problem so I unloaded twenty- four boxes onto tightly packed shelves in my small home study.  

After a year and a half  I moved into the church office--a dank, windowless one in the basement of the church. We tried bright paint and an outdoor mural to make it cheerier, but the dampness from the frequent flooding caused the mural to sag sadly off the wall. Nevertheless, it was my office, and I loved it.  Eventually, though, I had to abandon the office and move my boxes back home.  

In time, my daughter moved back home, along with our two grandchildren.  My home office became a nursery.  I moved some of my boxes back into the dank church office. The rest went to my bedroom. I often worked there, sitting on the corner of my bed.

Last year the church turned our old social hall into classrooms and I had a new office.  The bookcases they brought from the basement had to have their bottoms cut off due to water damage. This necessitated another culling of books.  I now had a third of the books I started with.  

Now I am moving my boxes to an office at New Life Seminary.  I will be putting twenty boxes of books on four tall bookcases.  There should be plenty of room for my books and mementoes.

A personal library is always changing.  Books flow in and out of my shelves. Like my body, sometimes it gets too fat, and I have to reduce it. My mementoes though do not change so quickly.  There are pictures from my old churches, souvenirs of oversea trips,  verses that mean something to me,  humorous drawings about being a minister, a picture of my old dog, a cross with the Lord's Prayer, a poem by my youngest daughter, my three published books, one of my wooden ship models (when there is room), as well as my diplomas and pictures of my family. 

Eventually, these will go too, I know.  But I will keep them as long as I can. They are my memories made visible.  But if I ever have to part with them, I will. The memories will remain with me,wherever I go.